Another day of pressure: KSE-100 falls over 1% as market divided over monetary policy announcement

Late-session selling compounded pressure at the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) as the benchmark KSE-100 lost over 750 points on Wednesday, adding to the losses from the day before.

Throughout the trading session, the index remained largely range-bound, but investors resorted to heavy selling in the final hour of trading.

At close, the benchmark index settled at 64,048.44, down by 753.26 points or 1.16%.

Across-the-board selling was witnessed with refineries, autos, and cements deep in the red.

Market experts attributed the final hour selling to a cautious approach adopted by the investors ahead of Monday’s monetary policy announcement by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP).

Meanwhile, Pakistan’s newly elected government is set to commence its talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) with market talk suggesting that Islamabad is likely to bring up its need for another bailout.

The IMF mission is arriving in Pakistan on Wednesday for a second and last review of a $3-billion standby arrangement. The four-day review begins on Thursday, said two finance ministry officials, according to Reuters.

The last review, if successful, will release a tranche of around $1.1 billion.

However, the pressure on stocks comes largely from uncertainty on the key interest rate as on Tuesday, severe selling pressure was also witnessed at the PSX. The benchmark KSE-100 Index fell below the 65,000 level with a decrease of nearly 1,000 points with analysts then terming it a ‘technical correction’ that was long overdue.

Globally, Asian shares notched seven-month highs on Wednesday, on the back of record peaks on Wall Street, as investors mostly shrugged off slightly hotter-than-expected US inflation, betting it won’t derail interest rate cuts expected by the middle of the year.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.2% to its highest level since early August.

Meanwhile, the Pakistani rupee registered a marginal gain against the US dollar, appreciating 0.11% in the inter-bank market on Wednesday. At close, the local unit settled at 278.79, a gain of Re0.29, against the greenback, as per the State Bank of Pakistan.

Volume on the all-share index decreased to 252.75 million from Rs321.70 million a session ago.

The value of shares declined to Rs92.47 billion from Rs10.85 billion in the previous session.

Cnergyico PK was the volume leader with 19.85 million shares, followed by B.O.Punjab with 18.74 million shares, and K-Electric Ltd with 14.39 million shares.

Shares of 329 companies were traded on Wednesday, of which 52 registered an increase, 257 recorded a fall, while 20 remained unchanged.